The Brutalist opens with Laszlo Toth (Adrien Brody) stepping out of a crowded room and into the sunlight. He catches a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty, but it’s upside down – an image that foreshadows the events to come and sets the tone for Brady Corbet’s inversion of the American Dream.
Toth, a Bauhaus-trained Hungarian architect, blends the lives of two great pioneers of the Brutalist movement: Marcel Breuer and Ernö Goldfinger. In this film, architecture plays a central role in the narrative, which invites the audience to reconsider the American Dream. In doing so, it explores the enduring trope of the architect as a misunderstood genius.
In many ways, The Brutalist achieves a rare feat. It is both visually stunning and introspective, thanks to the cinematography of Lol Crawley (best known for Noah Baumbach’s 2022 satire White Noise and Brady Corbet’s 2015 psychological drama, Childhood of a Leader). His compositions are delivered with intent, slicing through the designs themselves. The Brutalist is massive in every sense, following a man in constant battle, suggesting that designing architecture represents a type of freedom and that creating a masterpiece is the ultimate dream.
As we see the architecture taking form in the brutalist style, characterised by its raw concrete, Brady Corbet creates a Hollywood epic about the individual against the machine, seen through the eyes of an architect whose conflict is between his extraordinary vision and his struggle to make a place for himself in a new country.Corbet borrows storytelling methods from classical Hollywood, charting the rise of an upstart who faces isolation on the path to success. We’ve seen this story before in films such as Martin Scorsese’s 2013 dark comedy, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 period drama There Will Be Blood, but Corbet approaches it through the world of architecture.
The Brutalist depicts architecture as a medium for raw expression, and Toth certainly suffers for his art. Still, all the notions of design and style never detract from the core focus: achieving the American Dream. First defined by writer James Truslow Adams in 1931, the American Dream promised that anyone could build a better life through hard work. The Brutalist demolishes this notion.
The Brutalists‘ Relatable, Hopeful Artist
Toth arrives in the US from post-war Hungary as a hopeful, creative spirit, determined to make his mark in his profession, and unaware of the drama that awaits him. His troubles begin when he meets an opportunistic millionaire, Harrisson Lee Van Burden (Guy Pearce), who recognises Toth’s talent. The architect is quickly assigned a new project. So begins Toth’s path to creating his masterpiece and eventually discovering that nothing in his adopted country is what it seems.
The Lee Van Burden character could fit into any film about capitalism or the tension between wealth and art; he represents the dark side of commerce in The Brutalist. Throughout, we find the film has much to say about vanity projects and perfectionism in the modern world. Toth not only reflects architects, but also famous innovators who were obsessed with their vision.
Perhaps that’s why The Brutalist was the hottest ticket at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Audiences connected with its tale of ambition and artistic struggle. For all its humanistic themes, it never screamed box-office gold, yet the film was a massive commercial success.
The widespread appeal stems from its universal story of the hopeful artist, the promise of opportunity, and the slow disillusionment. It’s a classic tale of the clash between ideals and the realities of capitalism. These ideas form the bedrock of The Brutalist, which is at once familiar and subversive. As Corbet told the BBC in February 2025, “I thought it was important, even in narrative terms, to propose a story that starts off in familiar territory, but that ends up in more uncharted places.” Corbet delivers on that intention through Toth’s personal unravelling.
Corbet takes viewers on a journey, and we see Toth pushed to his limits. The film pulses with ambition, and it feels like a lived-in experience as the camera lingers on the buildings and interiors. There are moments when The Brutalist shines bright and reflects the raw, unfiltered spirit of the architectural style, but just as powerfully as it appreciates art, the film reveals a harsh truth. Corbet seems to suggest that decay and decline can appear when we least expect them – and nowhere is this more evident than in Toth’s relationship with Lee Van Burden.
Initially, Lee Van Burden and his peers hold Toth in high regard, but cracks in their relationship start to form, becoming more apparent over time. Van Burden uses his wealth and influence to make Toth dependent on him. That’s not all. Toth finds himself locked in an internal battle as he becomes increasingly accustomed to working with the elite, posing an important question: at what point does one compromise their values? However, amid constant criticism and commercial pressures, Toth remains steadfast in his architectural vision.
Brady Corbet, the Architect
The Brutalist is a film of two halves. If the first half follows Toth’s steady uphill climb, where he shows off his talent, the second half serves as a wrecking ball to his progress. Yet he rises, again and again, to meet each test, even as he faces rejection and constant reminders of his outsider status. What starts as momentum shifts into endurance, but Toth remains devoted to his project that keeps him moving onward.
Corbet directs with meticulous precision, and his attention to atmosphere is evident in every frame. However, the cinematography never distracts from its characters, especially Toth, whose struggle to build a legacy is clearly a metaphor for all artists, including Corbet himself.
Much in the same way Toth battles for his art, the director spent seven years working on The Brutalist. During production, Corbet faced various scheduling difficulties, but nothing would stand in his way of getting the film made. In a January 2025 interview with ScreenDaily, he said: “I’m quite accustomed to having the plug pulled… but I’m also accustomed to getting things back on track. I was pretty relentless.”
That determination courses through the film. Toth faces many obstacles, such as when the project comes to a halt, leaving him adrift and struggling to find a way forward. The Brutalist grapples with the cost of success, the nature of hard work itself, and redefines the American epic through an architectural lens.
Brilliantly crafted but grounded in a collective cynicism, The Brutalist shows how dreams and ambition, if left unchecked, can be destructive. However, its portrayal of a genius mostly follows convention. The film exercises this common trope but offers a twist on the relationship between artists and their clients, showing that the value of a project lies in the process, not just the outcome.
All of this plays out on a grand scale, from the towering structures Toth seeks to create to the claustrophobic spaces he inhabits, and there’s a feeling of constant motion. The result is an ever-evolving, visual world, where we feel Toth’s hopes and pressures whenever he appears on screen. Through Corbet’s exploration of a character who came from humble toil, The Brutalist reflects the very soul of architecture. Yet for all its vastness, it comes alive in the quieter moments, reminding audiences of Toth’s humility and relentless drive.
The Brutalist is an excellent examination of the American Dream, but it explores many other issues, ranging from assimilation to the pursuit of self-actualisation. It intends to be for a proper moviegoing experience: robust, unpredictable, and demanding full attention. Toth’s wife, Zosfia (Raffey Cassidy), says the most memorable line: “No matter what the others try and sell you, it is the destination, not the journey.” In the end, The Brutalist delivers a monumental achievement: a sharp indictment carved with the same severity and purpose as its architecture.